Welcome to the forums Logan!. From the sounds of your introduction, this forum will probably be one of your new stomping grounds. We have a growing, respectful community here, with a wide range of interests that you would probably fit right in with.

Like you I am interested in Ethical Theory, but I also focus on ancient Greek philosophy. I guess you could say that I aspire to be an expert in the field as I am working to the ultimate goal of teaching philosophy. Is there any specific ethical theory that you prefer?

Glad that you have joined us, and I look forward to future dialogue.

Welcome to the forum, Logan.

Are you primarily talking about teaching at a college? How is that going for you so far?

A specific ethical theory that I prefer to study or have a preference of belief in?

Thank-you both for the welcome

Logan,

You sound a most welcome addition to our numbers, so again, welcome aboard logan----enjoy!!

Well, I am working to the goal of teaching college. I have a way to go yet. I have a couple of semesters left for my undergrad, and then I have grad school.



Consequentialism (Utilitarianism), deontological ethics (Kantian ethics), or Virtue ethics (Aristotelian ethics). I was pretty much just interested if you favored any of the three. This has been one of the biggest debates within ethical theory, because they seem incompatible on the surface. I have written a couple of papers arguing against this notion over the years.

Thank-you boagie


That sounds great. Best of wishes along your journey.

I prefer the coherence theory of justification, so this usually puts me against a lot of traditional methods of belief justification. Regarding those methods and systems you presented I find each of them to reason and justify certain things very well but to simultaneously be very bad at justifying and taking into consideration other aspects.

For example, with utilitarianism the moral worth of an action is based solely on how much happiness or pleasure is averaged and/or summed (and how much suffering and pain is minimized) among being with the capacity to feel happiness and suffering. Utilitarianism does wonders in talking about the ethics of animals (including humans) who possess these capacities and it also does groundbreaking work in addressing our obligations and ethics towards future generations. However, this system has a great deal of trouble with dealing with beings who are unable to suffer or feel happiness and how these beings fit into a system where the standard is justified by these lacking capacities. Even with the contemporary attempts to view actions as generalized good/bad (as opposed to pleasurable or painful) the ontology of capacities that different beings possess puts into conflict the various goodness' and badness'. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

I prefer to analyze my beliefs in regard to each argument. For example, 'What do I think reason is?,' 'Are moral judgments not beliefs?,' or 'Are there no moral requirements?' So to answer your question, I do not favor any of those ethical systems as a whole, but rather I favor in their ability to each explain certain arguments better than the others.